Reinforcement of multilevel governance dynamics: creating momentum for increasing ambitions in international climate negotiations

Compared to the disappointment of the 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen, the results of the recent Conferences of the Parties can be regarded as positive progress. This was made possible due to lesson drawing and learning among states. Recent evidence from the UNFCCC negotiations suggests that countries began to reflect on the “Copenhagen experience.” They are setting up domestic climate legislation in the form of low carbon development plans and share their knowledge and experiences in the international climate change negotiations. Country representatives engage in workshops and roundtables to showcase their mitigation plans and low carbon development initiatives, thereby raising ambitions and creating group pressure on other countries. This article examines how the diffusion of policies across countries is motivated and facilitated by knowledge transfer and learning within multilevel-reinforcing governance dynamics between the domestic level and international negotiations. It analyzes how changes in the negotiation setting from confrontational formal negotiations to a more open forum and bottom-up pledge-and-review process, in combination with a positively framed win–win low carbon economic development narrative resulted in the diffusion of climate policies across developed and developing countries. Communicating these climate initiatives on the national level has shifted the debate. Countries emphasize less the win–lose perspective of economic costs and sacrifice. Thus, they focus less on the question of who should reduce emissions’, but identify co-benefits instead. The institutionalized knowledge sharing within the UNFCCC is also creating positive competitive dynamics among countries to increase their ambition and to take on a leadership role. This shift in the negotiations carries potential for a more ambitious aggregate negotiation outcome and opens up a window of opportunity.     

Why Some Adolescents Are Open To Their Parents’ Political Communication

This study examines the conditions that make adolescents open to their parents’ attempts at political socialization. Based on a reformulation of the perceptual accuracy argument, that parents’ messages are filtered through correct perceptions of these messages by adolescents, the study suggests that adolescents who accurately recognize their parents’ high political sophistication are particularly likely to attend to and be open to their parents’ political communication. This proposition was tested using cluster analysis of a sample of 505 Swedish upper-secondary students and their parents (51% girls; Mage?=?16.56, SD?=?0.67). The analysis yielded two clusters where adolescents correctly identified (26%) and failed to correctly identify (22%) their parents’ high political sophistication, and three clusters where both parents and adolescents reported low or medium parental political sophistication (10%, 11%, and 32%). In confirmation of the hypothesis, members of the cluster group of adolescents who correctly recognized their parents’ high political sophistication were particularly aware of parents’ political socialization attempts and receptive to parents’ political communication. Moreover, these youth considered their parents’ political views as important and, accordingly, seemed to perceive their parents as political role models.

     

‘Neutral’ experts? How input of scientific expertise matters in international environmental negotiations

This contribution analyses under what conditions expert input is most likely to be regarded by government representatives as useful and how government representatives use input provided by experts. It widens the analytical lens examining multilateral negotiations within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) between 2009 and 2011. The findings confirm the importance of deep knowledge, long-term involvement in the policy subsystem and networks. This research illustrates the importance of policy-entrepreneurial strategies such as proactively approaching government representatives and volunteering knowledge. Joining government delegations can increase expert input as they may gain access to the negotiation text. It is crucial to provide input early on in the negotiation cycle before the national negotiation position is decided. Scientific consensus on climate change facilitated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) resulted in a convergence of the actor’s beliefs towards understanding climate mitigation and adaptation as normative imperative. Actors, however, interpret expert input based on the consensual IPCC findings differently depending on their conflicting political objectives. Thus, instrumental and political use of expert input by the interest groups overlaps in the UNFCCC.     

The Female Jihad: Al Qaeda's Women

When women carry out a suicide attack they undermine the idea of who and what a terrorist is. What is generally not realized is the extent to which women are involved in terrorism. The purpose of this article is to explore and to analyze the multifaceted roles of the women in the movement of Al Qaeda. The argument is that the role of the women the world audience perceives is the one of a suicide bomber but the role of an ideological supporter and operational facilitator is more important for the maintenance of the operational capabilities and the ideological motivation for a terrorist organization. This article argues that the women follow a gender-specific interpretation of the radical ideology, the female Jihad. The concept of the female Jihad means that the women carry out a political act by supporting their male relatives, educating their children in the ideology and facilitating terrorist operations. The female Jihad is defective when the women follow the male Jihad interpretation of the Jihad by carrying out attacks. For the survival of a terrorists organization women are more important when they follow the female version of the ideology. Because the men could get arrested, die in an attack, or could get shot by the security forces, the women continue to take care about the financial issues of the organization and continue to educate the children in the “right” belief. To verify these arguments the article is divided into three parts. The first part will look at the motivation of women participation at a terrorism organization and the motivation of a terrorism organization to use women for its purposes. The second part tries to throw some light on the female suicide bombers who acted under the umbrella of the movement of Al Qaeda. In this part the female terrorist attacks will be analyzed. In the third part Sisterhoods will be explained and the concept of the female Jihad will be analyzed. The findings of this article about the involvement of women in the movement of Al Qaeda will bring us to conclusion that women do play an essential role in these organizations and groups. Following the argument that successful counterterrorism should address both the motivation and the operational capabilities of a terrorist organization there is an essential need for the national security forces to expand their capabilities to look more carefully at women.     

Verwaltungsprozessrecht

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

THE PROHIBITION OF THE PROPOSED SPRINGER-PROSIEBENSAT.1 MERGER: HOW MUCH ECONOMICS IN GERMAN MERGER CONTROL?

We review the Bundeskartellamt (Federal Cartel Office Germany)decision on the proposed merger between Springer and ProSiebenSat.1from an economic point of view. In doing so, it is not our goalto analyze whether the controversial decision by the Bundeskartellamthas been correct or flawed from a legal point of view. Instead,we analyze whether the economic reasoning in the decision documentreflects state-of-the-art economic theory on conglomerate mergers.Regarding such types of mergers, anticompetitive effects eitherdo not occur regularly or are more often than not overcompensatedby efficiency gains, so that a standard welfare perspectivedemands reluctance concerning antitrust interventions. Thisis particularly true if two-sided markets, like media markets,are involved. However, anticompetitive conglomerate mergersare not impossible, in particular in neighboring markets wherethere is some relationship between the products of the mergingcompanies. In line with the more-economic approach in Europeanmerger control, a particular thorough line of argumentation,backed with particularly convincing economic evidence, is necessaryto justify a prohibition of a conglomerate merger from an economicpoint of view. Against this background, we do not find the reasoningof the Bundeskartellamt entirely convincing and sufficientlystrong to justify a prohibition of the proposed combinationfrom an economic perspective. The reasons are that (i) the Bundeskartellamtfails to continuously consider consumer and customer welfareas the relevant standards, (ii) positive efficiency and welfareeffects of cross-media strategies are neglected, (iii) in contrast,the competition agency sometimes appears to view profitabilityof post-merger strategy options to be per se anticompetitive(efficiency offence), (iv) the incontestability of the relevantmarkets is not sufficiently substantiated, (v) inconsistenciesoccur regarding the symmetry of the TV advertising market duopolyversus the unique role of the Bild-Zeitung and (vi) the employmentof modern economic instruments appears to be underdeveloped.Thus, we conclude that the Bundeskartellamt has not embracedthe European more-economic approach in the analyzed decision.However, one can discuss whether economic effects are overcompensatedin this case by concerns about a reduction in diversity of opinionand threats to free speech. Similar to the Bundeskartellamt,we do not consider these concerns in our analysis.     

Governing complexity: How can the interplay of multilateral environmental agreements be harnessed for effective international market-based climate policy instruments?

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - Major new multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) have entered into force in 2016, including the Paris Agreement (PA)...